State wants video of '80s Ridgway witness

Prosecutors today will ask a judge to compel the testimony of a 39-year-old prostitute who 19 years ago said Gary L. Ridgway asked her for a date and also inquired about a friend, whose later slaying is believed to be the work of the Green River killer.

Detectives on the Green River Task Force tracked Paige Miley to a jail in Nevada. In a hearing today in King County Superior Court, prosecutors will ask Judge Richard Jones to order her to give a videotaped statement.

Miley continues to take drugs and engage in prostitution, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Patricia Eakes said in an affidavit, and cannot be depended upon to appear at Ridgway's trial in the slayings of four women in the early 1980s whose deaths were among 49 attributed to the Green River killer.

Defense attorneys oppose the motion.

Police first became interested in Miley as a witness after she contacted them when her friend, Kim Nelson, disappeared.

According to Eakes' affidavit:

Nelson and Miley and their pimps had been sharing a room at the Ben Carol Motel on Pacific Highway South on Nov. 1, 1983. About 11 a.m. that day, Miley persuaded Nelson to join her on the highway to help her "earn the rent."

Nelson agreed and the two walked to a nearby bus stop to look for "dates," the affidavit says. Miley was picked up and then returned 15 minutes later but Nelson was gone. Miley returned to the motel to wait for her, but Nelson never came back.

Miley was immediately concerned and called police, the affidavit continues. The document notes that prostitutes working the south end of King County were aware that several of their number had disappeared in recent months and that some bodies had been recovered along the Green River.

Two days later, Ridgway — who Miley later identified from a photo montage — attempted "to date her," the affidavit says, but she turned him down because he didn't want to go back to her motel room and instead wanted her to get in his red truck. He also asked Miley about her "tall blond friend," the document says.

At 5 feet 11 inches with platinum blonde hair, Nelson was a prostitute who stood out on Pacific Highway South.

Eakes' affidavit says Miley saw Ridgway again several days later, talking to other prostitutes in the area, and was so convinced he was involved in the Green River slayings that she reported him to the Green River Task Force.

Nelson's skeletal remains were found on the Garcia Road off Interstate 90 in June 1986, and task-force detectives again contacted Miley. She gave tape-recorded statements, now considered vital to the prosecution.

After DNA evidence allegedly linked him to the deaths of three women, Ridgway, a 52-year-old Auburn truck painter, was charged with murdering them and one other woman. All died in 1982 and 1983, their bodies found in remote areas — three along the Green River. He has never been charged in Nelson's death, although police have long suspected him.

Ian Ith contributed to this report. Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com.